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R E V I E W
A chemical systems approach to evolution
Robert Joseph Paton Williams
Received: 15 July 2009 / Accepted: 24 July 2009 / Published online: 19 September 2009 Springer-Verlag Italia 2009
Abstract The paper concerns the chemists way of looking at evolution. It is not based on
the DNA but on the chemical elements in The Periodic Table of Mendelev. The first step is
the analysis of the element content of organisms as they arose historically. This shows that
in keeping with our knowledge of the environment the chemical elements in organisms
changed due to the rise in oxygen in the atmosphere. Elements such as copper and zinc
were greatly increased in later organism as they were released from their sulfidic ores to the
sea. The nature of the changes in the chemical elements available to organisms is thendiscussed in terms of their functions. It is shown that much though the Darwin perception
of evolution is pure chance it is strictly guided by the inevitable chemistry of the elements
arising from oxidation of the environment.
Keywords Environment Evolution Chemical elements Organisms
Prokaryotes Eukaryotes Oxygen in atmosphere DNA/RNA Messenger systems
Biominerals
Paper presented at the Symposium Dmitry Mendeleev - 140 Anni dalla Presentazione del Sistema
Periodico (Rome, 28 May 2009).
Note Concerning this Paper
This paper was given on 29th May 2009 at a meeting of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in order to
celebrate the 140th anniversary of the formulation of The Periodic Table by Mendelev. The paper does not
concern the chemistry of all the elements in that table but refers only to those of significance in living
organisms. However, the functional significance of the elements involved in living processes is a direct
reflection of their properties as placed in that table. There are the very different values of the elements in
Group I, Na and K; Group II, Mg and Ca; transition metals in Groups III to XI from Sc to Cu; B-subgroup
elements such as Zn in Group XII and non-metals from Groups XIII to XVII including B, C, N, O, Cl, Si, P,
S, Se and I but as in Mendelevs original table the elements of Group XVIII, the noble gases, do not appear.It is not only mineral but also biological inorganic chemistry that is systematized in the table. Evolution of
the environment and organisms are closely related to the inorganic chemistry Mendelevs Table reflects.
R. J. P. Williams (&)
Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford,
South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QR, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
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DOI 10.1007/s12210-009-0053-9
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1 Introduction: species and molecular biology
The essence of life is accepted to be the formation of chemically active, spatial enclosures,
cells, controlled by genetic information, which have given rise to a huge variety of species.
The early recognition of similarities of and differences between organisms in speciescontrolled by reproduction, led to the formulation of them in classes. Similar species were
seen to be connected by such properties as structural features including shape, as seen also
in fossils, and by behaviour differences. Darwin and his successors proposed that the
species appearing at any one time had arisen by chance variation which gave rise to strong
survivors whether by effective reproduction or management of life style (Darwin 1859).
Biologists were in this way able to draw up evolutionary trees, see Fig. 1. The phrase often
used to refer to these ideas concerning species is survival of the fittest. Now in the last
50 years the essential features of evolutionary trees has been confirmed by organic
chemists specialising in analysing and making comparisons of sequences within molecules
of individual species and of their pathways of metabolism, and by physical chemists
analysing structures of the large biopolymers. The schemes include comparisons of genetic
material, DNA/RNA, under the heading of genomes; of proteins, under the heading of the
proteomes, and of substrate metabolic paths, under the heading of metabolomes. The
studies are often grouped together under the heading of molecular biology and particular
stress is then placed on the relationship between biopolymer sequences (genes) and
metabolism and the evolution of characteristics of organisms including their shapes,
internal structures and behaviours (Maynard-Smith and Szathmary 2000).
From a simple chemical point of view these studies are not, historically speaking, in
keeping with the way in which chemists have uncovered the nature and origins of objectsand systems in the environment such as of minerals and aqueous solutions, seas, yet it is
clear that all organisms have derived their chemicals from the environment. Initially the
conventional chemical approach is direct element analysis of an object followed by an
effort at understanding its molecular components and their formation using structural,
thermodynamic and kinetic considerations. This study led in 1960 to the formulation of the
Periodic Table of Mendelev. Here we shall show that using this chemical step-by-step
Fig. 1 A conventional view of
evolution. All kinds of organismsdevelop in time in what is
supposed to be a random way
without a direction
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methodology chemists can provide a novel way to analyse and even to understand major
features of evolution.
2 Chemical systems biology
Ideally, in this approach, thermodynamic concentrations and rates of transformation of all
the chemical components of a cell should be studied after obtaining a thorough knowledge
of chemical composition. It is immediately obvious that this is an almost impossible task if
we have to take into account the great multitude of organic chemical components of cells
of a given species. An alternative possibility is to examine first the more basic quantitative
chemical element content of these cells including not just the elements common to the
organic chemicals, that is, C, H, N, O, S and P, but also all the common inorganic
elements, many of which are found in cells (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001), and then
to limit enquiry to a selected group of compounds. In such a chemical systems analysis it is
necessary to recognise that an organism is linked to its environment in an energised
manner. Therefore we must consider the restrictions on the environment of any cell with
the ways in which energy is used to accumulate and to incorporate elements in bound
cellular components in molecules or to reject them, Fig. 2 (Frausto da Silva and Williams
2001; Harold 2001). As well as their free element concentrations we wish to characterise as
far as possible some of their bound forms in both the environment and in cells and how
they have changed with time. In the environment the free concentrations of many metallic
inorganic elements are present as simple ions, such as Na?, K? and Cl-, which, when in
the cells, have become what we have called the free metallome (Frausto da Silva and
Fig. 2 The basic diagram of
energy input to material in a
flowing environment/organism
(cells) system
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Williams 2001), while the non-metals appear as simple molecules, H2, O2, N2, hydrides,
H2O, H2S, CH4 or NH3 or as small molecules or ions bound to oxygen, CO, CO2, NO,
NO3 , HPO24 , SO
24 and so on. These small components are also part of the metabolomes
in the cell. It is this limited list of ions and small molecules common to the environment
and cells which will engage our attention, but we shall have to restrict our analysis of largermolecules in cells. The organism/environment system then consists in energised exchange
of these basic inorganic elements together with the cellular synthesis and degradation of
their compounds. Instead of looking at differences in genotype we can therefore look at
certain chemical characterisation in what we shall call chemotypes of cells, thermodynamic
systems descriptions, as they have evolved including their interactive environment.
When we examine such exchanges of flowing material, we recognise immediately that
organisms are separated from the environment in cells by cell membranes. Together the
cells give rise to the shapes of all organisms, which as mentioned already, have always
been used to aid an ordering of species and their evolution. However, if we are to consider
systems of flowing chemicals we must be careful that we do not limit discussion to
boundaries formed by cell membranes alone and we must not assume that such shapes are
linked to genes alone. That other types of boundary can give rise to shape in the absence of
genes will become clear immediately below. Shape is not only due to ordered structures,
but is due to restrictions on dynamic flow which we shall call organisation, Fig. 3. It arises
from energisation of material under long-range field constraints. This approach, systems
biology (Alon 2006; Corning 2001), therefore has aspects which separate it from molecular
biology since molecular biology is concerned overwhelmingly with chemical structures
and pathways, order not organisation, and does not consider controlled concentrations or
flow. There is certainly a large degree of ordering of chemical elements, e.g. in smallmolecules and their sequences in polymers, but there is also a high degree of organisation
of the flow of the elements and their components in cells. Indeed none of the structures of a
cell are permanent and all are part of the flow but some parts are on different timescales
Fig. 3 A generalised distinction between the reversible thermodynamics of equilibrated systems and the
irreversible systems of energised flow systems. F is feedback of products to reactants which causes the
system to evolve.
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from others, e.g. DNA, relative to the flows and exchanges of small molecules and ions.
The different timescales will be shown to be of extreme importance since they change in
evolution as complexity arises. Reverting to molecular biology and indeed the classical
biological approach to evolution, Maynard-Smith and Szathmary (2000) in their important
book The Major Transitions of Evolution, recognise that evolution of species hasincreased in complexity but they consider that this increase is neither universal nor
inevitable. While this may well be true of the vast diversity of species at any one time we
shall show that the general direction of the evolution of the whole energised system of
species, considered in chemical types, chemotypes, and not as genotypes, together with the
environment is systematic in chemistry and physical complexity. We shall base our con-
clusion on simple chemical analysis of cell compartments in large part. Let us begin
analysis of energised systems of flowing chemicals on planet Earth in the simplest possible
way, the case of environmental physical circulation of one chemical, water, and its contact
with minerals, which reveals the nature of organisation as well as of order, and the different
timescales of evolution in parts of it.
3 The simplest physical system, water circulation and erosion, and the simplest
chemical system, the ozone layer
We can all recognise that events, such as the seasons and the weather, have features which
recur, such as the system of circulation of air with water molecules that brings rain. The
rain comes in repeatable cloud patterns. Now, clouds are classified by meteorologists into
ten or so shapes which tend to recur at different heights and under different air movementconditions. The cloud shapes persist for considerable times and arise through boundary
conditions due to fields, gravity, and energy input from temperature gradients and air
movement. There is no physical boundary and no coded (genetic) information. The cir-
culation of liquid water later is from sea to land via rivers where riverbanks now form
physical constraints on flow but they too are not permanent although they have much
longer time constants than clouds. Over time the rivers move solid material and form novel
shapes including deltas. The process of erosion (changing shape) is helped by sea currents
and it is the formation of sediments, from the sea and rivers that gives rise to soils, which
has allowed life to exist on land. Water circulation, rain, is also essential for organisms on
land and internally. Evolution of life is clearly dependent on the physical evolution of theenvironment, and it too has repeated patterns on different timescales.
A second example of a circulation system, now not physical alone, is the formation and
shape of the ozone layer. This layer like any other chemical flow system is affected by the
addition of extraneous chemicals that can interact with the circulation. Again there are no
physical boundaries, only fields and energy gradients, and no coded information.
In both of these systems of flow we observe that, at any one time, the whole is in a
steady state of flux, corresponding to the optimal rate of energy absorption and degrada-
tion, and changes in boundaries in their environment give changes in their shapesa form
of evolution. These simple examples show further that material in a gaseous, liquid, or anyother condition capable of random motion will have this motion constrained in part into a
pattern of directed flow once it is subjected to gradients of energy input and fields,
boundaries. The fields can be long range such as gravitational or electrostatic, when we
may not see them, or short range repulsive or attractive fields (due to molecular structures
for example), where we recognise the boundaries as surfaces, of membranes for example.
A further important point to notice is that the treatment of these systems, Fig. 3, cannot be
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by thermodynamic equilibria as such systems are deadthey do not flow. In a flow the
material can be in a steady state but energy is constantly degraded. It is an irreversible
system, much though material cycles, see Fig. 2. The major driving force of flow is the
transformation of high energy quanta to a greater number of low energy quanta, e.g. light
going to heat where light comes from the sun, Fig. 2. A more difficult system to analysefrom the two examples given is one that contains many reactive chemicals. We now turn to
such a more complicated chemical system, the environment/organism ecosystem, and its
evolution. In order to see this evolution of a unique chemical system from its beginning we
turn to the initial nature of our environment.
4 The initial condition of the environment
We make the assumption that there is one universe and that chemical elements were
formed in it as it cooled from the big Bang in an inevitable kinetically controlledsequence
(Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001). The elements are known to have formed in giant
stars and the pathway is universal giving the abundance of elements while there are still
very considerable amounts of residual H and He. Cooling of heavier elements gave rise to
planets in small zones around stars and Earth has a pre-determined resultant abundance of
elements which, by the very process of the original element synthesis in the stars, contains
much C, N, O and F and lesser amounts of Si, P, S and Cl and then very small amounts of
all other non-metals. Note that Li, Be, B are of low abundance due to the nuclear kinetics
in the stars. Much free H2 escaped very early in Earths history. Amongst metal elements
there are large amounts of Na, Mg, Al, Ni and Fe (through special stability of the Ni and Fenuclei) and small decreasing amounts of K, Ca to Mn and elements following Zn such that
all heavier elements are of much lower abundance. The evolution of the abundance of all
these elements is well understood. The important quantity for the ecosystem is availability
and chemical reactivity of these elements on Earths surface where life is found, for here
evolution of our ecosystem has occurred. The available elements initially as ions or in
small molecules were H, C, N, O, (F), P, S, Cl (and Se, which is very important in life, to a
smaller degree) amongst non-metals; the metals Na, K, Mg, Ca, in comparable amounts to
P and S; and, in strongly decreasing amounts, the transition metal series Mn, Fe, Co, Ni,
Zn, and Cu (where Cu was virtually absent) and some W (Mo was virtually absent)
amongst the heavier metals. The low initial availabilities of Ni, Co, and especially Zn, Cuand Mo were due to the insolubility of their sulfides since initially H2S but no O2 was
present (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001). These environmental chemical facts are
essential to our understanding of the nature of the evolution of chemotypes amongst
organisms. The availability of phosphorus is much debated as phosphate has always been
of rather low concentration in the sea. The role of mineral iron phosphides has been
discussed.
5 The chemical approach to living systems
The two simple properties of cells we have to analyse first, treating them in systems
language, are their sources of energy and the concentrations in cellular flow of materials in
the form of the available chemical elements transferred to and from the environment. We
shall concern ourselves with steady states of flow of the simplest cells over a considerable
period of time, the lifetime of an organism, and later with the different chemical steady
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states in cells that have arisen historically over different periods of time, that is with the
evolution of this environment/organism system. We shall have nothing to say of the origin
of life about which we have no definite evidence, but we need to see its nature from the
properties of existing organisms in anaerobic environments which we take from fossil
evidence to have been present on Earth some 3.5 billion years ago (Corning 2001;Cavalier-Smith et al. 2006). These bacteria and archaea already have one limiting mem-
brane containing a physically continuous cytoplasm and much structure in molecules
including genes. In the cytoplasm there is flow but, as there appears to be little grosser
structure than that of free biopolymers, we shall assume that in the steady state the major
flows maintain an inner homogeneous content due to uptake and external rejection and
loss. This requires energised pumping of selected, amongst available, elements of the
cytoplasm. These activities are unavoidably linked to the primitive environment of cells,
which we take to be the anaerobic sea.
When we turn to the central chemistry of these, the most primitive (Cavalier-Smith et al.
2006; Thauer and Shima 2006; Woese 1998), and in fact all later cells we must note that
the cytoplasm of all cells has to be more reducing even than the initial environment
and this reduced state is fixed even to today. This follows from the very nature of the
biopolymers and lipids that are the bedrock of cellular life. Cells have to reduce these non-
metal elements to low oxidation states, that is carbon to or below the level of CHOH,
nitrogen to NH3, sulfur to H2S, and selenium to H2Se, and the cytoplasm must be free from
reactive oxidising agents such as peroxides, superoxide, NO, and NO2 . The redox potential
of the cytoplasm then forces metal oxidation states to low values, that is Mn2?, Fe2?,
Co2?, Ni2?, Cu?, Zn2? and Mo and W to oxidation state IV, where Cu, Zn and Mo were
virtually absent since they were nearly unavailable (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001).They, like alkali metal ions, also bind, through Lewis-acid properties, in rapid or quite
rapid exchange with organic molecules relative to a cell life-time in a systematic manner
(Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001). The control of the metal oxidation states and the
presence of reduced sulfur (H2S) helped to keep the limit of free ion concentrations in the
cytoplasm of all cells in harmony with the conditions of the initial anaerobic environment,
see Fig. 4. In fact, we know from analytical data that these concentrations are closely those
even of today since internally the low cell redox potential has been maintained. The
selective binding in cells is matched to ligand (protein) and to in/out pump production so
that even for tightly bound ions both the very low concentrations of free ions and of their
compounds are fixed. The selectivity is that commonly seen in model complex ion for-mation constants, for example in the Irving-Williams order, and is known to be the same
for the proteins of transcription factors, many enzymes and pumps. We have discussed this
selectivity in detail elsewhere (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001) and it is based largely
on equilibrium principles in cells (and in the environment). It is a very interesting chemical
systems (thermodynamic) restriction on evolution of the ecosystem very different from
those of genetic and abundance considerations.
Now there are some combinations of metal ions and molecules or proteins based on a
different way of achieving selectivity. Here kinetic control of insertion in a site follows
from equilibrium binding to a protein in a first step. This protein has been called (Frau
stoda Silva and Williams 2001; Outten and OHalloran 2001), a carrier, a chelatase or mostly
recently a chaperone. The protein has a specific shape generated by the selected metal and
this shape is recognised by a second binding agent, a molecule or a protein. The second
agent receives the selected metal almost irreversibly. This process allows a metal to be put
into a site for which it may have low affinity e.g. Mg2? in chlorophyll. It is common to the
synthesis of all porphyrin complexes of Fe, Co, and Ni. It is also used in the synthesis of
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some strongly bound special sites of certain proteins for a given metal such as copper and
in the controlled transport of ions such as calcium.
Now a primitive cell had problems other than those of the internal synthesis of
reduced organic biopolymers and of limiting ions and their compounds. To maintain
survival it had to reduce the ionic concentration below that of the sea for otherwise the
osmotic strength of ions plus the cells organic molecules would have burst cells. This is
true to this day (except in fresh water) so that cells in general pump out Na? and Cl-
continuously. To maintain electrical neutrality approximately, K? is allowed into the
cell together with Mg2?. Clearly there is always an electrostatic field as well as a strong
concentration gradient across all cell membranes and note that fields can affect shape but
shape of bacterial cells is limited by a hard outer membrane. At least one other cation
had to be rejected, Ca2?, perhaps also Mn2?, since at the concentration in the sea it
readily precipitates many anions essential for the metabolome. Calcium binds in a very
different way from Mg2? and acts as a strong cross-linking agent. Ca2? was and is
pumped out of all cells to a level of\10-6 M against an external concentration of
[10-3 M. We shall see how all these initial necessary ionic gradients have an essential
role in later evolution.
To summarize it is the nature of all cellular life that the cytoplasm is strongly reducing
and that it has a fixed concentration of free ions while it rejects certain initially poi-
sonous ions. Systematic changes with time of biologically created and modified redox
gradients and electrical/concentration gradients, between the cytoplasm and the environ-
ment gave evolution a direction as we shall see. Observe that chemical elements in
primitive cells were used so as to optimalise their chemical value, Table 1, given their
availabilities.
Fig. 4 A plot of the logarithm of the free metal ion concentrations in the cytoplasm of all cells for a range
of metal ions. The plot arises from the reductive character of the cytoplasm and in essence is the same as that
for elements in the sulfide rich sea except for Na and Ca. The downward arrows represent a small downward
trend during more recent aeons. The series is one of equilibria in cells and is also well-known in complex ion
chemistry
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6 Energy capture
Before we turn to the oxidation of the environment we must examine not just the
requirements of the environment/organism system for flow of material but also those for
energy capture and its transduction by the cell. We do not know how energy capture began
but we can reasonably believe that energy from some source could create gradients of ions
across membranes. How that led to the formation of pyrophosphate in the form of aden-
osine triphosphate, ATP, from a proton gradient we do not know either but we do know
that these are the initial steps of the major mechanisms of energy transduction (Harold
2001; Williams 1961). These steps are the basis of photo-energy transfer, which also
produces reduced organic chemicals, and later of oxidative phosphorylation. We canhypothesise other possible early steps for the generation of ion gradients, for example,
from unstable chemicals, e.g. iron sulfide (Wachtershauer 1988) or other metal transfor-
mations, but the main route became by absorption of light, at first by carotenoids and then
by chlorophyll pigments, the general route today. The very nature of most large molecules
automatically increases light absorption. Very early in evolution there was an increase not
only in useful pigments, but of many co-enzymesseveral containing metal ionsall used
to this day. This overall advance was in accord with the idea that the steady state of flow
will adjust toward optimal energy utilisation through a search. We shall see that in evo-
lution the rate of energy absorption and degradation increases, as does the flux of material.
The system heads for a steady state but there are factors preventing its rapid realisation.
As mentioned already energy capture giving material flux has to be coupled to reduction
of especially CO and CO2 in order for polymerisation to produce kinetically stable organic
chemicals. It is this reduction that causes release of oxidising equivalents to the envi-
ronment. In the next section, we shall consider the ecosystem evolving through these
unavoidable oxidative changes of the environment, Fig. 5 (Williams and Frausto da Silva
Table 1 The essential primitive roles of metal ions
Metal ion Some roles
Mg2? Glycolytic pathway (enolase)
All kinases and NTP reactionsa
Signalling (transcription factors)
DNA/RNA structures
Light capture
Fe2? Reverse citric acid cycle
CO2 incorporation
Signalling (transcription factors)
Control of protein synthesis (deformylation)
Light capture
W(Mo) O-atom transfer at low potentialMn O2-release
Ni/Co H2, CH3-metabolism
Na?, K? Osmotic/electrolyte balance
Ca2? Stabilising membrane and wall, some signalling?
a Almost all synthesis pathways
K?/Ma?/Cl- control of osmotic and charge balance while Ca2?, Zn2?, Cu have very little role
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2006). The search for an understanding of evolution is clearly most easily uncovered by
following simultaneously changes in inorganic element chemistry in the environment/
organism ecosystem and not just by changes in synthesised organic chemicals only present
in cells.
7 The effect of cellular waste oxygen upon the environment
Todays cycles of water and ozone described earlier produce virtually no new chemicals inthe environment although the water cycle did and does cause slow physical erosion and so
the whole water cycle changed physically in time. We also mentioned that the addition of
chemicals such as freons to the ozone layer altered the ozone flow and its zone shape.
When we turn to environment/cellular activity the material flow is not cyclic. While cells
removed certain elements such as H, C, N, P and S, and incorporated them, and took in
some ions, they rejected others including Na?, Ca2?, Cl- with some heavy metal ions. At
the same time they rejected O2 to the environment (Castling 2005). O2 was and is quite
rapidly reactive in the environment and became the source of many major element
changes, which were pollutants for the initial anaerobes (Saito et al. 2003). Amongst non-
metal elements it converted CO and CH4 to CO2, NH3 to N2, H2S to SO24 , and H2Se toSeO24 quite quickly and of the metal elements it oxidised their sulfides to more soluble
oxides rather slowly hence increasing to more poisonous levels many metal ions of Co, Ni,
Cu, Zn, and Cd in the sea while it released molybdenum as molybdate from MoS2. One
metal ion was lost to a large degree, Fe2?, converted to Fe3? and precipitated. We can
follow many of these changes in the sedimentary rocks (Williams 1961), Fig. 6, or in
element isotope ratio changes (Cavalier-Smith et al. 2006). Now the quantitative genera-
tion of O2 at any time was small so that it took two to three billion years to oxidise all the
iron and sulfur in the sea (Alon 2006). To a first approximation the sequence (evolution) of
other environmental changes is therefore governed by the buffering of the rising oxygen
redox potential, see Fig. 7 (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001; Williams and Frausto da
Silva 2006). It must be stressed that these sequences of chemical oxidation changes of the
environment were close to equilibrium and were inevitable given the demands for
reduction of elements taken from the environment by organisms. There is a need for energy
input to generate this change and all the available evidence suggests that over the period of
4 9 109 years the energy input to the surface of Earth has not changed greatly from
Fig. 5 The cycle of material through the environment/organism ecosystem which is driven by the
generation of heat largely from light
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todays global average which maintains a surface temperature of around 300 K although
there have been considerable fluctuations (Corning 2001). The fluctuations have not
affected the general direction of chemical change much though they have varied its rate
considerably due to the consequent upsurges and downturns in oxygen generation by
organisms and the variation in numbers of organisms. The gradual build up toward the
present day steady state of oxygen concentration in the atmosphere, which may have been
reached 500 million years ago (Williams 1961), does not mean that changes in the sea and
Fig. 6 The evolution of organism types with the rise in oxygen, which can be followed by the formation ofminerals, such as iron bands. The appearance of complex organisms eukaryotes began about 2000 million
years ago
Fig. 7 The standard redox potentials of the elements most involved in organisms at pH = 7.0. Note redox
potential could not be lower than the H?/H2 potential (-0.4 volts) initially and the probable crude average
potential of several non-equilibrated redox pairs was higheraround (-0.2 volts). The swing to today is
toward the redox potential of O2/H2O (?0.8 volts) but this is above the crude average of the non-
equilibrated total system. The order of appearance of changes in the ecosystem is taken to follow the series
indicated
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land have also ceased yet. There is still a vast reserve of reduced material, especially note
sulfides, on or near the surface of Earth. We can expect trace element concentrations to
change for millions of years to come but note that these changes can be affected too by
volcanoes and by the novel impact of mankinds industry, see below.
There is one further environmental change, which has only been appreciable in the last2 billion years, that is the appearance of an ozone layer. This layer protects the land from
high-energy radiation and has been a major factor in organism evolution.
We turn next to the effect these environmental changes, always close to equilibrium,
had upon organisms which are the second part of the ecosystem. They themselves gen-
erated the changes of the environment but then they had to adapt inevitably to the new
environmental conditions since their survival was dependent on mastery of the released
poisonsboth non-metals and metals. All organisms are far from equilibrium of course
and cannot adapt quicklythey are conservative.
8 The first stages of evolution: prokaryotes (Leach et al. 2006)
Apart from improvements of energy capture from light and of metabolism utilising
coenzymes the subsequent development in prokaryotes was to put to use the production in
the environment of poisonous O2, SO24 , Fe
3?, NO3 and inert N2. These chemicals from
outside cells, were not just sources of S, Fe and N but, with O2, could yield energy, ATP, in
novel ways when reacted across membranes with the reduced debris from cell death which
was taken into the cells. This advance, the use of so-called oxidative phosphorylation to
give ATP, gave rise to organisms independent from energy from non-equilibrated sulfidesor from light. The new energy capture activity led ultimately to animals and fungi, as
opposed to plants, the plants being the source of reduced compounds. The distinction often
made between aerobes (able to use O2) and anaerobes (not using O2) is not a logical one.
The true distinction is between anaerobes, using non-biological energy sources, minerals or
light, and organisms utilising oxidising agents and reduced chemicals from organic debris,
only some of which also use light.
The new prokaryotes which adapted to the oxidising chemicals ? debris are called
variously sulfate-bacteria, nitro-bacteria, ferri-bacteria and aerobes. (Some are classified
with anaerobes but the environment is no longer strictly anaerobic.) We need to note that
they had to acquire a battery of new enzymes on the external surface of the cytoplasmicmembrane, since the compounds are poisons in the cytoplasm. Many of these enzymes are
found in an extra-cellular space, the bacterial periplasm. (Very interestingly the new uses of
molybdenum (available after removal of much sulfide) are in NO3 reduction in this space.
However, non-toxic N2 is reduced in the cytoplasm by low valent molybdenum.) This is a
major advance since it introduces a complexity associated with an extra reaction space
(Maynard-Smith and Szathmary 2000; Williams and Frausto da Silva 2006), an additional
compartment which utilises reagents not permitted in the cytoplasm. In particular some
copper enzymes are now found in the periplasm. Copper was made available by oxidation of
its sulfide. These cells therefore evolved, adapted, through use of poisons, rejectedchemicals from the cytoplasm of cells (Williams and Frausto da Silva 2006), and their
products. We shall observe this mode of evolution many times in our account.
Before leaving the prokaryotes observe that there are cells with different capacities for
the handling of different oxidised chemicals. This specialisation, compartmental division
of labour, here random in space, led to a cooperative ecosystem which increases in
cooperativity continuously amongst later organisms.
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9 The evolution of eukaryotes (Maynard-Smith and Szathmary 2000;
Cavalier-Smith et al. 2006)
Eukaryotes are large cells with many compartments and much internal structure. There is
no satisfactory explanation from genetics for the appearance of them some two billionyears ago but much can be deduced from their protein content assessed from their DNA
(Dupont et al. 2006; Morgan et al. 2004). By then there had been a further change in the
chemistry of the environment. This is the time when the sea came to have sulfate and
almost no sulfide, very little free iron, only ferric at 10-17 M, and oxygen in the atmo-
sphere, say at 1% of present levels, Fig. 8 (Cavalier-Smith et al. 2006). At this time cobalt,
nickel and especially zinc and copper sulfides had begun to be oxidised although this
process remains slow as these minerals were largely buried. All these changes were
damaging to early prokaryotes although, as we have described above, they adapted quite
well by using reactions outside the cytoplasm and by a lose cooperation between many
species. An alternative possible new cellular construction, which underlies the evolution of
eukaryotes, was the use of a much greater number of divisions of space inside one cell so
that incompatible reactions could be carried out in separate internally trapped, organised
compartments protected from one another instead of haphazardly, Fig. 9 (Maynard-Smith
and Szathmary 2000; Williams and Frausto da Silva 2006). To achieve this evolution
needed a much larger cell with a longer lifetime, a more complicated genome, internal
filaments holding vesicles in place, greater protection from damage, and clearly a more
effective way of recognising and utilising its environment would assist it. As these cells
were slow to reproduce it is not surprising that the pre-existing prokaryotes did not
Fig. 8 The rise in oxygen in the atmosphere gave rise to the evolution of different types of organism
correlated with the introduction or use of novel elements from the environment and increasing numbers of
compartments
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disappear but co-existed with eukaryotes and as we shall see in certain ways the pro-karyotes even assisted the eukaryotes.
Now let us look at the internal chemical changes, particularly due to oxidation, which
underlie the evolution of eukaryotes (Dupont et al. 2006). The most obvious is the change of
the contents of the outer membrane based on an oxidised molecule, cholesterol (Cavalier-
Smith et al. 2006). This membrane, with no outer membrane, is now flexible so that it can
sense, using fields or direct contact, obstacles and change shape. It could also swallow large
particles including whole prokaryotes. In addition to using them as a source of food the
eukaryotes found a way to incorporate virtually whole bacteria as functional units. These
bacteria (Margulis 1998), chloroplasts and mitochondria, became the major sources of
compartmentalised energy generation within the eukaryotes. This is the first example ofinternal symbiosis. Note that this use of internal small organisms, much modified today
as organelles, mitochondria and chloroplasts, separated the formation of proton gradients
essential in energy transduction (Williams 1961), from the main cytoplasm, which is held at
a constant pH for good metabolic reasons. The organelles use considerably more manganese
(chloroplasts) and the newly released copper (both organelles) than elsewhere inside the
cell. These two elements could be quite damaging to the long-lasting DNA of the eukaryote
but are less damaging to prokaryotes for which fast mutation can be an advantage. Note also
the new copper/zinc superoxide dismutase in the eukaryote cytoplasm and contrast the iron
or manganese enzymes of prokaryotes. The Cu/Zn enzyme does not exchange ions while the
Fe and Mn enzymes can and are more dangerous to DNA. The increased use of zinc in
eukaryotes is further associated with its functioning in DNA transcription factors, zinc
fingers, opposite the genes for some novel functions required by eukaryotes (Frausto da
Silva and Williams 2001; Outten and OHalloran 2001).
Other advantages of novel compartments inside the cell is that they permitted reactions
such as degradative digestive hydrolysis (in acidic vesicles called lysozymes), peroxide
Fig. 9 The outline distribution of ions in a eukaryotic cell showing the different distribution in vesicles andthe use of Cu and Zn proteins outside cells
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reactions (in vesicles called peroxyzomes), selective precipitation and crystallisation (in
high Ca vesicles) eventually for external mineral production, e.g. CaCO3, and selective
formation of enzymes and other polymers for export (in the vesicles called the endoplasmic
reticulum and Golgi apparatus) and so placed them away from the cytoplasm where their
activities would be damaging. In these vesicles high acidity, high concentrations of boundCu and Mn for oxidation and high concentrations of Ca and sulfate are variously created.
Another feature of the eukaryotes was the ability to recognise advantageous or dele-
terious environmental circumstances by sensing of the environment in two ways. Thus the
exposed external and flexible membrane carried an electrostatic field gradient which could
sense neighbouring fields and change shape (compare cloud formation). The major new
response of the eukaryote cell, however, was utilising its calcium gradient in signalling to
its cytoplasm (Ca2? concentration 10-7 M) by in-flow from the environment (10-3 M)
Ca2? (Carafoli and Klee 1999). (The gradient was created to assist all life by removing
poisonous calcium from the beginning of life.) Environmental changes affecting a cell now
caused Ca2? ions to enter the eukaryote cytoplasm momentarily via activated channels.
Ca2? there activated many coordinated fast cytoplasmic physical and metabolic changes
including contraction or expansion of the membrane via its network of filaments and the
switching on of extra energy transduction in organelles. The calcium message was
amplified by calcium-release from internal ER vesicles. Calcium was rapidly removed
back to vesicles and the environment by pumps to avoid poisoning. The resultant responses
to the environment are part of the knitting together of the two parts of the ecosystem,
environment/organisms, which has increased greatly to today.
Now great disadvantages of eukaryotes were the vulnerability of a long life, and
complexity. Complexity was reduced by dropping some pathways essential for all life, e.g.N2-fixation, energy transduction, and certain coenzyme syntheses, including heme and Fe/
S complexes, while obtaining all of them from bacteria. The organelles have their own
DNA. Note how all this symbiosis reduces the load on the eukaryote DNA. Let us see
next how organisms progressed further as the oxygen levels rose and increasing quantities
of poisons entered the environment. The systematic development of the use of the
poisons of compartments and symbiosis will be clear, see Table 2.
10 The multi-cellular eukaryotes (Maynard-Smith and Szathmary 2000;
Dupont et al. 2006)
Subsequent evolution depended largely on increase in the number of compartments now of
differentiated cells (and organs) in the large multi-cellular eukaryotes, we see all around us
with use of increasingly available novel elements. Once again note the increased systems
efficiency of combining together internally, compartments, now cells of different capa-
bility in different organs, as opposed to that of the previously disorganised sets of different
single cell classes separated in space. This development itself required the positioning of
many cells (organs) held within a single body by external connective tissue. This tissue was
cross-linked via the oxidative action of newly releasedcopper
in enzymes and hydrolysedperiodically to allow growth by the increase of zinc hydrolytic enzymes (Williams and
Frausto da Silva 2006). As stated copper and zinc had gradually increased in the envi-
ronment by oxidation of sulfide to sulfate some 1 billion years ago. It is surely this change
of the environment which enables evolution of multi-cellular eukaryotes. As we have
pointed out elsewhere it is difficult for organisms to use other elements in the functions
which copper and zinc supply (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001; Williams and Frausto
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da Silva 2006). The novelty of separate cells (later organs) in one organism demanded
novel communication through the inter-cell (inter-organ) extracellular fluid contained now
within a total organism of many linked cells (organs). To maintain the homeostasis of cells,
this fluid came to have a fixed ionic composition of Na?, K?, Cl-, Mg2? and Ca2? ions,
not too unlike the sea. Now these ions cannot act as messengers between cells as they are
too highly concentrated in the extracellular fluids and hence are not open to variation there.
The new communication system which evolved was that of novel organic molecules, often
released from vesicles in a donor cell and which activated distant receptor cells. The
messengers, named transmitters (fast acting) and hormones (slow acting), are mainly ox-
idised organic molecules. The oxidised transmitters, e.g. adrenalin and amidated peptides,
in vesicles are often synthesised using copper enzymes. The release mechanism from
vesicles due to an external event at the donor cell relies, as before, on calcium input to this
cell while the activation of the receptor cell relies on the organic transmitter messenger
causing opening of calcium channels of this second cell (Morgan et al. 2004; Carafoli and
Table 2 Involvement of elements in homeostasis during evolution
Primitive anaerobic Early (anaerobic) Later (single-cell) and
prokaryotes single-cell eukaryotes multi-cellular eukaryotes
(aerobic)
H, C, N, O, P, S, Se
substrates and polymers
H+, Na+, Mg2+, Cl, K+, Ca2+
exchangers
Ca2+ structural
H+, P, S, Fe signals
W enzymes
Mn, Fe, Mo, low potential high potential
enzymes enzymes
Ni enzymes (H2.CO)
Ni (urease) . plants only
Co(B12) . animals only
Ca2+ ATP-ases
(Zn enzymes) ? Zn enzymes in vesicles and extra-
cellular
Zn signalling (DNA)
Ca2+ rejected Ca2+ in vesicles and Calmodulin, annexinfilaments and inner
signalling
Na+, K+ osmotic Outer filaments and
and charge balance signalling Na+/K
+
between cells, Na+/K
+
ATP-ase
Organic hormones
Iodine hormones
Cu enzymes
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Klee 1999). This is the basis of much relatively fast chemical communication and its
evolution is shown in Fig. 10 and Tables 3 and 4 (Frausto da Silva and Williams 2001;
Wachtershauer 1988). Now complex cell (organ) organisation has to undergo continuous
modification during growth from a single cell and long-lasting hormones act as controls as,for the most part, they undergo only slow changes in circulating fluids, e.g. sterols, Fig. 11.
These hydrophobic hormones are synthesised in cells by localised protected oxidation by
iron enzymes (P-450) and they then pass through membranes. They act mostly as long-
term homeostatic agents but on change of concentration they cause changes in growth
patterns. These oxidised organic molecules such as steroids, thyroxine and retinoic acid act
at DNA via zinc finger receptor proteins, present in ever-increasing numbers which are
readily recognised in DNA sequences. (Note thyroxine is a compound of iodine produced
by oxidation.) We consider that zinc acts as a slow coordinating messenger for these
Fig. 10 The increasing use of calcium as a messenger between the environment and all eukaryote cells
followed by that of organic molecules as messengers between cells in one organism. The two cooperate
Table 3 Some classes of calcium proteins in eukaryotes (Morgan et al. 2004; Carafoli and Klee 1999)
Protein Location and function
Calmodulina Cytoplasm, trigger of kinases etc.
Calcineurina Cytoplasm, trigger of phosphatases
Annexins Internal associated with lipids, trigger
C-2 domains Part of several membrane-link enzymes
S-100a Internal and external: buffer, messenger, trigger
EGF-domains External growth factor but general protein assembly control e.g. fibrillinGLA-domains External, associated with bone
Cadherins Cellcell adhesion
Calsequestin Calcium store in reticula
ATP-ases Calcium pumps
a EF-hand proteins
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hormones and hence for metamorphosis and growth, contrast calcium, which acts to give
fast coordinated response.
Now while these evolutionary changes came about utilising the increase in otherwise
poisonous copper and zinc, and note also calcium, all three in several functions, there was also
a marked reduction in the use of nickel and cobalt which had been of value in the earlier
reducing environment (Thauer and Shima 2006). In fact higher plant cells do not use coen-
zyme B12 (Co) and man has no nickel enzymes in his genome and cobalt is in vitamin B12.
Again while these multi-cellular organisms gained in efficiency in collecting light (plants) orscavenging (animals and fungi) they became increasingly complex and they became more
and more chemically dependent on lower species (which still used cobalt and nickel)
actually bound to or in them. The whole ecosystem of chemotypes became a unity with
hostility only between similar speciesbut observe that species are not important in systems
evolution. Plants became dependent on fungi for minerals and on bacteria for nitrogen while
animals became dependent on plants for all elements but on symbiotic organisms for many
synthesised chemicals (vitamins). Plants and animals give carbon food to symbionts. Notice
how systems efficiency has increased as organisms live together and share chemicals so that
each DNA carries a reduced load. At the apex of complex growth is man, the poorest chemical
factory, dependent on hundreds of symbiotic organisms, unable to make many essentialcoenzymes, vitamins, amino acids and sugars. Where is the sense of survival of the chemi-
cally fittest but in the system as a whole, dependent on (and driven along by) the environment
existing at a given time. While all novel organisms developed complexity in response to
systematic environmental change this very complexity made it advantageous to rely on
simpler organisms for chemicals necessary for all organisms.
We must stress that the large size of plants enabled greatly increased capture of light and
synthesis while the great capacity of animals together with earlier organisms to digest made for
a greater and greater rate of degradation of material. Energy was increasingly degraded by this
cyclea large factor in evolution is this increasing rate of entropy production.
11 The fossil evidence
We can follow some parts of evolution directly in fossils. For the period between 3.5 and
1.0 billion years ago the only evidence is of the imprints of soft-bodied organisms. There is
Table 4 Distribution of different Ca2?
binding protein motifs in organisms
Binding proteins
Excalibur EF-hand C-2 Annexins Calreticulum S-100
Archaea 6a
Bacteria 17 68a
Yeasts 38 27 1 4
Fungi 116 51 4 6
Plants 499 242 45 40
Animals 2,540 762 160 69 107
The table is based on the total number of all proteins in the DNA sequences available in 2004. The activities
calcium proteins are indicated in Table 3a These proteins have single EF-hands and are not signalling proteins, all the remainder are for signalling.
From Morgan et al. 2004
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no certain evidence of the development of eukaryotes from prokaryotes but some images,
together with DNA extrapolation from the variety of existing organisms, suggest that
single cell eukaryotes arose between 2 and 1 billion years ago. Between 1 billion and
0.55 billion years ago the fossil evidence began to change as a few hard bodies were
discovered. It is probably in this period that multi-cellular structures evolved. However it is
very clear that after 0.54 billion years ago, the Cambrian explosion, and quite quickly, a
very large variety of multi-cellular invertebrate organisms arose and many had hard shells.
From then on the fossil record is very rich. By close to 0.5 billion years ago the vertebrates
evolved. By that time complexity including nerve and other message systems and the
primitive beginnings of a brain had appeared. In about half a billion years the variety and
numbers of living organisms developed dramatically following the changes to the
Fig. 11 The introduction of mainly oxidised organic molecules as transmitters, e.g. adrenaline, andhormones, e.g. sterols, as well as connective tissue in the new multi-cellular organisms. Note the connection
with increased copper and zinc in the environment and the novel functions of calcium, see text
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environment. This description of the link between the environment, organisms and fossil
evidence will be published shortly with R.E.M. Rickaby.
12 Nerves and brains (Williams and Frausto da Silva 2006)
This is an immense topic and the evolution of the brain has no simple explanation. The
demand on animals is that they scavenge instead of waiting for chance to gain sustenance.
Efficient scavenging depends upon sensing and collecting. Now the large animal organ-
isms, which evolved because of internal efficiency of specialised organs, have differently
localised sensing and dynamic organs, separated by a large distance, and therefore need the
fastest possible communication network to survive. (Motionless plants do not require such
sensing except to light (leaves) and gravity (roots) which are generalised units separated by
space fields where shape arises as in clouds!!) Clearly what was then needed in animals
was connectivity between sensing and mobility equipment that was located differently in
space, e.g. senses. Senses, except smell, are not very useful near the ground, but some
muscles must contact the ground. The solution found was the evolution of a fast long-range
communication between the two by long axons of nerve cells using physical electrostatic
switching of ion gradients. The most mobile, fastest, ions and of adequate free concen-
trations for this purpose are Na?, K? and Cl- and they were adapted. Observe that all cells
from the beginning of evolution had produced gradients of these ions, Fig. 12, through the
need to protect against osmotic instability, Na? and Cl- are environmental poisons.
Unfortunately these ions cannot stimulate chemical change at a target, as they do not bind.
Hence at axon/axon (synapses) and nerve/muscle junctions of two cells the communicationnetwork frequently utilises the already devised Ca2? influx often followed by stimulated
organic molecule exiting to link cell to cell, as in earlier eukaryotes. Notice how the use of
elements evolves so that gradually the available poisonous elements for primitive life are
functional, e.g. Cu, Ca, Na, Cl.
From the nerve cells it is a relatively small step to nerve cell organisation so that all
senses and dynamic actions work together and can stimulate cooperative organism
response including shape and metabolic changes. No coded response system is involved so
that now the environment/organism system is in rapid, independent of DNA, response
mode. Behaviour is now not just linked to genes but is dependent on chemical/physical
field changes (see clouds). At first it remained, even in these two parts, automatic.
Fig. 12 The development of pumps for ions. Note the two different types. Type II ensured Na? and Ca2?
removal from cells and later evolved in a multitude of forms associated in part with the nerve cells in
animals. Type I removes heavy metal ions such as copper and zinc
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13 Memory and mankind
An interesting late feature of this organisation of nerve cells was that they led to
memory in the brain in addition to automatic very fast responses. The brain evolved
storage of external and internal events in fields (not sequences). These field images,memories, are remarkable and not localised, involving as they do storage of ions,
charge, and molecules at many considerably separated but connected brain zones. Thus
the image has a shape and a capacity but no molecular structure as in a sequence and it
is relatively transient (note again the nature of clouds). The field image, (memory),
independent of DNA, is learnt from experience and teaching so that action, response, is
no longer automatic or inherited but has a development within the individual organism
and in communities and is fast. The images allow self-consciousness in higher animals
and then rational thought in man to aid action. Rational thought has given rise to the
evolution of mans society without a connection to genes and has allowed action
independent from them. The consequence is an ability to manipulate physically and
chemically the environment. It is important to see that society evolved very quickly
without genetic change. Man was not the first organism to have increased recognition of
the environment nor the first able to increase use of it, or to organise to take advantage
of it, see single cell eukaryotes. These processes have been gradually introduced and
continuously developed in a chemical systematic change of organisms during all of
evolution, but man is the first organism to be able to rationalise and manipulate in effect
the whole of the physics and chemistry of the environment, of other organisms, and of
himself. He does so using chemistry and chemicals external to himself. He is then
unique as a species and is a separate chemotype. His dilemma is that he is daring to usethis knowledge and ability to gain ascendancy over all other species and also over the
chemical environment to some degree with his quite novel chemistry but also with
novel waste. There is then the danger of self-indulgent misjudgement of the chemical
system. Population increase, over protection of a species, man, and external use of
energy/environmental chemicals of all kinds can not go unchecked as genetic change is
too slow to compensate. The changes have been made exceedingly fast due to very fast
transport and communication network and industrial machines. The whole has the
ingredients for causing a breakdown in the environment/organism ecosystem, largely
based on genetic controls, on which man depends since organisms have very limited
chemical capacity for fast change. Global warming (CO2 production) is but onechemical result but several others are surely present. In so far as these strictures are
correct, a great effort is required by the chemists not just to increase wealth locally and
competitively amongst nations through research but to teach the sensitive chemical
nature of the environment/organism system which can only be understood through
physics and chemistry. Although mankind cannot avoid the consequences of the
changes produced already he should be able to develop policies to minimalize their
effect and create the best future for himself and the planet.
Finally, we stress that from a systems viewpoint evolution has been chemically con-
sequential and unavoidable given the initial conditions of the environment and cells.Chemotypes appear in a logical order. Species and individuals within chemotypes are a
totally different problem, and are probably without explanation being randomly developed.
The concentration on internal markers, e.g. biopolymer sequences, and on physical char-
acteristics of organisms can show relationships between species but does not make the
essential chemical element connection with the environment.
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14 Summary
Evolution has previously been treated as a random succession of organisms seeking sur-
vival in a competitive struggle. Emphasis has been on classifying and connecting species
and their advantages and how they have arisen mainly through a sequence of random DNAchanges. Here we take a quite different physical/chemical systems approach to the evo-
lution of a unity of cell types seeing them as inevitably following and coupled to envi-
ronmental change, oxidation, which cells themselves forced, Fig. 13. These chemotypes
are defined by gross features of chemical element flow, composition and combination, and
of physical compartmental diversity and organisation. There is an inevitable progression by
adaptation and mutual dependence (symbiosis) and functional chemical complexity.
Within chemotypes, random exploration gave rise to species but they are not open to
systems analysis. The chemical elements in the chemotypes include organic and some
dozen available inorganic elements, and the environmental changes in them has been the
major cause of evolution, giving it a direction, Table 2. The system is then an ecological
unity continuously affected by products from organisms, ejected to create an environment
waste, which then back react to force adaptive change on organisms. We see the pro-
gression as leading inevitably to the characteristics of the latest chemotype, man, with
novel environmental connections and risks as he extends the organism/environment
chemistry to include all the elements of the Periodic Table. In no way is man a special
creation and he may not be the end-point of chemical systems evolution, Fig. 11. Some two
billion years or more ago bacteria caused a parallel environmental switch when they
released oxygen and generated a change in the availability of certain elements with dra-
matic consequences for evolution. Will our waste have a similar effect, see Fig. 5? Thewhole ecosystem, largely cyclic, was and is driven by energy degradation. Seeing this
perspective opens a huge range of exploration for chemical study. We are left with a
puzzle as to how the changes of the environment could impact directly upon genes
Fig. 13 The systematic
introduction of new chemotypes
in time with a schematic
illustration of the cause behind
the introduction of noveltythe
slowly increasing oxidation of
the environment. This givesevolution a direction in a
chemical system. Species can be
random within the chemotype
classes. The central axis of the
cone is time and is associated
with the radial axis oxidation
(oxygen levels) of the
environment, which increases
toward the centre. Any
chemotype can exist within a
newly conical section
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(Williams and Frausto da Silva 2006) as appears to be the case in some quite particular
cases (Janlonka and Lamb 1995; Neuberger et al. 2003). It is fascinating to see the
systematize chemical properties which lie behind Mendelevs Table appearing in the uses
of the elements in living organisms.
15 A note on Gaia
Lovelock (2000) has advocated for some time that there has been an evolving steady state
relationship between the organic materials of life and the changing atmosphere which has
reached an optimal condition between present day material and the atmospheric gases. The
oneness of the steady state is called Gaia. In this article and elsewhere (Frausto da Silva
and Williams 2001; Williams and Frausto da Silva 2006) we have indicated that such a
steady state has never existed. Evolution on the chemical scale is the chemistry of the
changing environment, caused by life and affecting organic and inorganic chemicals,
which force adaptation of organisms. Organism chemistry of some twenty elements
changed but slowly in response to the environmental evolution since organisms are con-
servative. The system as a whole will attempt to reach a steady state, Gaia, not of
chemicals but of energy capture and degradation but the material balance in that final
condition is not predictable, involving, as it must, very many elements. Thus Gaia now
representing present day life is at risk from global warming and many other changes today
but they are just the human contribution to environmental change that will lead to further
evolution, which we cannot predict. Life has always been forced to change by its own
pollution of the surface of Earth.
Acknowledgments This paper is in very large part a reproduction of a paper, R.J.P. Williams, A ChemicalSystems Approach to Evolution, Dalton Transactions 2007, 9911001, with permission from The Royal
Society of Chemistry, UK.
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